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This book presents a selection of the best of the weekly'Pastor Iuventus' columns from The Catholic Herald.Arranged over a year, the columns give us a true-lifepicture of the ministry of a parish priest in a busy city. The diaryconvincingly conveys the tangible and day-to-day reality of apriest's life and work. The journal is about the endless fascinationsof parish life: the highs and lows, births and deaths, newchallenges, and, amongst all these, the quiet presence of God.The author tells it as it is, with candour and insight, but also withhumour and brilliance. Through the everyday life of the parish,the local hospital and the school, we are given an intimateportrayal of real life. The reader will be moved and inspired by thebeauty and depth of these weekly columns. As the year unfolds,the journal reminds us of the closeness of the Providence of Godto every human life.As Dr William Oddie says in the Foreword to the first edition,Father Allain's diary column provides readers with "an often vividinside track on the spiritual life of a parish priest, in a way whichcertainly conveys its pressures and difficulties, but which alsonurtures the spiritual imagination of its readers by demonstratingthat those pressures and difficulties can always - with a simpleand basic faith in the realities of a working Catholic spirituality -be withstood and transcended."Fr Dominic Allain was ordained priest for the Archdiocese ofSouthwark. Now the International Pastoral Director for 'Grief toGrace' - a programme which brings spiritual and psychological healingto survivors of sexual and other abuse (www.grieftograceuk.org), healso works as a retreat giver and spiritual director. This book draws onhis experiences as a parish priest and hospital chaplain in the Londonarea. He is well-known to many through his weekly columns, 'PastorIuventus', in The Catholic Herald.

Every day of the year is a day for the Lord, but also for His Blessed Mother, Mary. Daily, Daily Sing to Mary lies in the tradition of the Marian Calendar, a collection of feasts honouring the Blessed Virgin Mary. Each day brings to mind the actions the Mother of God has undertaken on behalf of Christians of all nations and kingdoms throughout the ages. The story for each day of the year also brings a lesson for us. The original Marian Calendar was first published when King Louis XIV of France was still a boy, and it is in reality a collection of famous sites of pilgrimage to the Blessed Virgin throughout all of Christendom. This work is offered to the Christian world for the hundredth anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima. The accounts provide abundant proof that Mary, the Mother of God, has indeed claimed the hearts of Christians from the earliest centuries down to the present day. They are also evidence of the value of the Blessed Mother's influence and mediation on the behalf of her children before the throne of God. In these pages, for each day of the year, we have endeavoured to list a particular miracle, apparition, conversion, or healing which took place on that day through the maternal hands of Our Lady. On occasions we also recall events in which Our Lady saved people from all kinds of danger, at sea or on land. We have also documented simple events, like the finding of a Marian image, which may not seem in themselves to be miraculous, but point to a deep care which the Mother of God has for her Son's people. We have taken episodes from all parts of the world in a truly Catholic way, showing that Our Lady has influenced so many people's lives and often in non-Catholic and even non-Christian lands.

The received wisdom is that no friendly contact between Anglicans and Roman Catholics existed from the Reformation until the Second Vatican Council - with the exception of the Malines Conversations hosted by Cardinal Mercier in Belgium in the 1920s. This work conclusively rebuts that assumption. Based on recently discovered archival material, it describes in detail highly-confidential Conversations on the subject of Reunion which took place in London in the early 1930s between an impressive team of officially-sanctioned Catholic prelates and scholarly, if somewhat eccentric, Anglicans disturbed as much by moral as doctrinal concerns. The Conversations explode the myth that the English Catholic hierarchy of the period was uniformly hostile to ecumenical contact. These ground-breaking discussions challenge us today to re-examine the nature of the Church and authority, and to re-assess the objectives of ecumenism. At a time when the endeavour appears to have lost impetus, this book is an incentive for us to regain the imperative of Christ that all His disciples might be one.

In a world which employs the most sacred terms with little reverence or appreciation God of the Exercises: A Director's Diary-Directory during the Spiritual Exercises of Thirty Days suggests the use of ordinary human exercises of mind and body to discover God.Paul Dominic reveals how the gift of directing the Exercises calls upon all of us to be willing to have our hearts changed, to recognize the gift of God at each moment of this journey, to see with new eyes the realities of our lives and cultures… May this book inspire all of us called to this ministry to recognize the gift of God in our calling. Nancy Y. Sheridan SASVThe Indian context is an especially strong feature of this book, partly from the use of Hindu terms and partly from an appreciation of what devout Hindus can teach us… There is much to be learned from God of the Exercises because it demonstrates, through one man's personal experience, what in practice the giving of the Exercises entails. Joseph A.Munitiz, SJ Former Master, Campion Hall, OxfordI have read completely God of the Exercises, and reread several parts of it. I admire both the frankness and candour and the depth of background learning that runs through it. In fact, while I had consulted the footnotes while reading the text, after finishing it I went back to look at those notes again because they impressed me in the range and quality of sources used therein to enrich the author's own reflection. John Padberg, SJ &am

Christianity has been firmly established in Iraq for nearly two thousand years, but from the fourth century to the present day Christians in Iraq have faced periods of terrible persecution. This book brings together their stories, from the witness of martyrs sixteen hundred years ago, across the centuries, to our own time. In the twenty-first century Iraqi Christians have been confronted by relentless terrorist attack, by genocide and exile from their homeland. Alongside accounts of martyrdom and massacre under the Persian and Ottoman Empires and, in the twentieth century, the newly independent Kingdom of Iraq, Robert Ewan records the heart-rending stories of just some of the myriad of contemporary martyrs: Sister Cecilia Moshi Hanna, Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, Father Ragheed Aziz Ganni and of the massacre at Sayidat al-Najat Church in Baghdad.

This is the true story of four courageous men who played pivotal roles in the religious and political struggles which nearly ripped England apart, from Henry VIII's break with Rome in the 1530's through the Civil Wars and the Restoration of 1660. John Hampden, "The Patriot", was a Puritan member of Parliament who reluctantly fought against King Charles I; his friend and relative the Reverend Robert Lenthall left England's shores only to return home, disillusioned, barely three years later. Two of the Reverend's relatives, the Speaker of the House of Commons William Lenthall, and the Speaker's uncle St Robert Southwell, also played their parts in the political and religious upheavals of the times. The Speaker defended Hampden and four other men accused of treason by boldly asserting the rights of the House of Commons when Charles invaded it in January of 1642, a moment remembered forever in the annals of the Commons. But he also abandoned the faith of his ancestors to cling to power under the Puritan Parliament during the Civil Wars, a source of bitter regret at the end of his life. His uncle St Robert Southwell, a Jesuit priest, poet and writer of some renown, paid the highest price of all these men for the freedom of conscience, dying as a martyr at Tyburn for the crime of being a Catholic priest. In a world in which religion was absolutely central to the individual, at a time when all Englishmen were forced to choose irrevocable political and religious paths according to their consciences, they all risked imprisonment or martyrdom; but their sacrifices ultimately led to the enshrinement of the ideas of freedom of speech and religion which are now the bedrock of the political systems of the entire English-speaking world.

This volume does not intend to be a biography of Paul VI whose personality, teaching, and pontificate have been the object of increasing scholarly attention in recent years. The aim here is rather to increase our awareness of the holiness of this pope-whose influence over the course of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century cannot be underestimated-through the cause for his beatification of which the author, as a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, was the Reporting Judge (Relator or Ponens Causae).

Ever since the Spiritual Exercises were first published in 1548, the need had been felt for explanations to help guide those giving them; hence the so-called Directories. But directors today continue to feel the same need, perhaps more acutely than ever with the spread in popularity of both spiritual direction and retreat work.Michael Ivens draws both on the wealth of published material and on the wisdom of his own long experience to produce a new commentary that attempts to unravel the inner workings of the Spiritual Exercises. He presents a new translation, as faithful as possible to the original, while commenting in detail on words or phrases that call for elucidation. At the same time his longer introductions to each section enable the director to distinguish the wood from the trees, and arrive at a firm and nuanced understanding of a great classic of western spirituality. The Commentary is a master class, as it were. It looks to the art of giving the Exercises. It distils great erudition with reflection on long years of experience. Experience illuminates the text and the early sources and invites the sources to illuminate experience. It is spare, lucid, complete, learned and wise. Joseph Veale, SJA unique, informative, lucid and much needed commentary on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. The book draws on the wisdom and experience of sixteenth-century Jesuit givers of the Exercises, and is written by a twentieth-century Jesuit, whose wisdom and lived experience of the Exercises is manifest. Gerard Hughes, SJ Michael Ivens, SJ was born in England and completed early studies in France and England before taking up writing and teaching in the area of spirituality. He worked for many years with The Way publications, under the guidance of James Walsh, and was then appointed as spiritual director to young Jesuit priests and brothers in their final year of training. This work took him to Australia and the USA. Later he helped establish the new retreat centre, St Beuno's in North Wales, with its specialized work in guided retreats. His wisdom and insight made him one of the best-known English directors of the Spiritual Exercises. Michael Ivens died in 2005.

WILLIAM GORDON WHEELER was one of a distinguished line of English Catholic prelates who were formerly Anglican priests. Born in Yorkshire in 1910, Wheeler attended Manchester Grammar School and University College, Oxford. He ministered briefly as an Anglican priest before converting to Catholicism in 1936. Seminary studies in Rome brought him directly to the centre of the Catholic Church. Ordained in 1940, Wheeler was successively a curate in Edmonton, chaplain of Westminster Cathedral, editor of the Westminster Chronicle, and chaplain to London University before becoming Administrator of Westminster Cathedral. There he displayed organizational talent, artistic taste, social skills and a deep love of the Catholic liturgy.As Coadjutor Bishop of Middlesbrough, Wheeler attended the Second Vatican Council. Whilst welcoming many reforms, the theologically conservative Wheeler became disenchanted with liturgical changes. Nevertheless, as Bishop of Leeds from 1966 to 1985, he faithfully implemented the administrative and pastoral changes initiated by the Council. Wheeler's episcopate was set against international and domestic turmoil, social and moral change, and challenges to authority. Falling Mass attendances and the loss of priests saddened him greatly but he faced these challenges with strong faith. He was influenced by the lives of the saints and English martyrs, but particularly by the writings of another Anglican convert - John Henry Newman. Style, courtesy and taste were Wheeler's hallmarks and he was dubbed 'the Last of the Prince Bishops'. An educated priest and an astute bishop, he was humorous and sociable. He was a man of prayer with a profound social conscience. Many argued that the Catholic Church he entered in 1936 was not the one in which he died in 1998. For all his sadness at some of the changes, he would argue differently. Throughout his long ministry he embraced with great love all he had sought from the Catholic Church. His life was a journey into the fullness of faith.

EARLY CHRISTIANITY explores how in the first centuries the followers of Jesus Christ lived their faith centred upon Him. It provides a comprehensive introduction, starting from New Testament times, to key figures in the rise of Christianity including Mary, Mother of God, and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the founders of Christian Rome. The book shows how the theological tradition of the primacy of Rome developed in the Church and with the Papacy. It considers a wide range of issues in the life of the nascent Church, helping us to understand how the early Christians related faith and reason, and were prepared to suffer martyrdom for their belief. Early liturgical and sacramental life is fully described, including a broad examination of the issues surrounding the date of the Easter celebration. It also illustrates how the Church had to face internal conflict and heresy, and examines the work of the first general Councils. Paul Haffner explores the significant role played by women in early Christianity, and describes the contribution of monks and missionaries in spreading the faith. He illustrates the impact on early Christianity of its leading figures, who exercised the major influence then and are still the most important of the Church today. This study is carried out from a Roman perspective, as the cradle and centre of Christianity. The book intertwines doctrine and history, tradition and legend, in the hope that the reader will have a colourful ride through the first centuries of the Christian epoch, enabling them to emulate what they find there.

Why, in a world often thought to be 'post-Christian', would anyone seek to convert to Catholicism? Why would they stand up on the day of their reception into the Church and declare publicly that "I believe and profess all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God"? There are many answers to both of these questions, all of which must necessarily contain important aspects of an individual's own unique situation. Ivan Oliver seeks to locate the journey he and his wife Ann undertook together in the context of their conversion from Anglicanism, the searing experience of his terminal illness, and the encounter with Catholic worship, thought and action. Recognizing that Catholicism is definitely not a 'cafeteria' religion from which an individual chooses options at will, Ivan Oliver proves an invaluable guide to major aspects of the Catholic life - liturgy, music, symbolism, social and moral teaching and the prospects for a new evangelization. A new evangelization that Pope Francis has made the priority of the Church.Throughout all the difficulties and joyful experiences of becoming a Catholic he shows that this walk has proved to be a truly fulfilling encounter with the Lord. A journey which continues day by day into Catholicism as the most complete expression of Christianity. Moreover, a walk into a renewed Faith which he and Ann gladly invite others to share.Ivan Oliver's thoughtful reflections on his own journey to the Catholic Church will be invaluable to many: either contemplating the same move, helping others on their conversion path, or simply looking to understand their own faith in an increasingly perplexing world.Ivan James Oliver worked as a civil servant, taught at the University of Warwick and, thereafter, was a crofter rearing highland cattle in the far north of Scotland. His main academic interests were in social and political theory, religion, the philosophy of social science and the history of ideas in general - beyond these music, cycling, mountains, and the sustenance of the crofting way of life. He died in 2015.

What is the meaning of the expression 'pastoral' applied to the Second Vatican Council? This seems a most difficult question to answer. Vatican II was a pastoral council, presenting teachings in a new, enriched manner, in a style which was not assertive or censorious, but descriptive or narrative.It also inaugurated a new way of being Council, although one must be careful to ensure that an over-enthusiastic welcome of the Council as 'event' does not obscure the rich conciliar texts and constant teaching of the Church.This new conciliar style can perhaps be seen as the passage from what is the Church to how it operates in the modern world. As a new conciliar paradigm, it can open the way to seeing Vatican II in a new light-hence the need to differentiate carefully a number of elements: the mind of the Council, the different nature of the documents, and the different magisterial authority even within the same documents.This book aims at clarifying and indicating a possible hermeneutical principle, leading towards a more faithful reception of the Second Vatican Council, which respects the Council in its precise identity and so gives the conciliar teaching its true place in a revealed and defined structure.Hopefully this historical and theological research, involving numerous archive documents, might help looking at Vatican II as a way which will foster unity within the Church.

Here is a forthright, succinct and readable analysis of the nature and consequences of secularisation, including a wittily acerbic history of its ideological evolution. But this is not just a social history: it is also a guide to how we as individuals can change history.Every major institution in the West has been dominated by secular humanists for decades. The results for society have been catastrophic. The demise of the shared Judaeo-Christian beliefs, values and spirituality that hitherto had underpinned our society and given it stability has long since undermined its foundations, leading to a myriad of social ills. Here ten Christians, one Jew and one Muslim trace the effects on ordinary people of being the first post-religious society. The book's first theme is the value of religion at a personal level; the second, its value to society; the third that the freedoms which Muslims, Jews and non-believers enjoy in Britain and the West today are based on a Christian tradition of tolerance - in stark contrast to the restrictions on Christians in the Muslim world; finally, that the Judaeo-Christian tradition itself is the inspiration of our history, law and institutions and must be vigorously defended.Today the Judaeo-Christian tradition is under attack as never before by the relentless barrage of secularism. The defence of Western civilization requires a concerted rearguard action. Taken together, the book's twelve chapters, in a defiantly outspoken but also considered manner, articulate a coherent call to arms. Its polemics are backed by thorough research and written by thinkers of distinction. Here is both a counterblast to the secular humanists and ammunition for foot-soldiers wanting to defend Christian civilization.